Jean Christophe: In Paris The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House

in those tragic hours of which he had had only too much experience. He was fearful also of the risks his friend was

en he met Mooch on the stairs. When the little Jew heard what he was about he was genuinely sorry that Olivier had not come to him: he would not let Olivier go to the broker's, and made him accept the necessary money from himself. He was really hurt to think that Oliv

ices, and then had gone away and had never come back. The hours had passed in the stillness of death. Christophe sat there, as still as the body: he never took his

der Schmerzen w

t uns ein treu

suffering as long as there are f

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ge ever recurred. He would pause every now and then for a few minutes, and then go on again, until there came a pause when he stopped altogether, and his face dropped into his hands: he was utterly worn out: and when Olivier went up to him, he s

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n, went with him to the station. Christophe refused point-blank to go without having a sight of the great river, by which he had spent his childhood, the mighty echo of which was preserved for ever within his soul as in a sea-shell. Though it was dangerous for him to be seen in the town, yet for his whim he disregarded it. They walked along the steep bank of the Rhine, which was rushing along in its mighty peace, between its low banks, on to its mysterious death in the sands of the North. A great iron bridge, looming in the mist, plunged its two arches, lik

im, and Olivier did not hurry to explain a mistake so favorable to Christophe's chances of escape. On the other hand, the police were not in the least discomfited

gle word to Olivier, either to ask him for news of his brother or to thank him for what he had done for their mother. Olivier spent a few hours more in the town, where he did not know a soul, though it was peopled for him with so many familiar shadows: the boy Christophe,

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of an ax. They reached a clearing at the top of a hill. Below them, in a narrow valley, in German territory, there lay the red roof of a forester's house, and a little meadow like a green lake amid the trees. All around there stretched the dark-blue sea of the forest wrapped in cloud. Mists hovered and drifted among the branches of the pines. A transparent veil softened the

te, where

hrist

s to me, now th

he comforting wo

or us. Think, not of

there was sad serenity. Gently, while no wind stirred, the misty veil was raised: the blue sky shone forth again. The melting sweetness of the ea

All is

r complete lack of selfishness.... And Christophe thought also of all the humble creatures he had known. How near to them he felt in that moment! After all the years of exhausting struggle in the burning heat of Paris, where ideas and men jostle in the whirl of confusion, after those tragic days when there had passed over them the wind of the madness which hurls the nations, cozened by their own hallucinations, murderously against each other, Christophe felt ut

ou; give me welcome. We are one; one life is ours, both the living and the dead; where I am there are you also. Now I bear you in my soul, O mother, who bore me. You, too, Gottfried, and you Schulz, and Sabine, a

e voices of children singing an Old German folk-song, frank and moving: the singers were three little girls dancing

e mingled joy and sorrow, death and life, the nations at war, and the n

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veil. Starting from his

nd by his side. He smiled

ugh the forest in silenc

er th

oli e senz

n dinnanzi, e

minor vanno